HISTORICAL. 


1*7 


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CHICAGO  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY. 


REPORT  OF  SPECIAL  MEETING,  APRIL  3,  1900. 

A  special  meeting  of  the  CHICAGO  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  was  held 
in  the  lecture  hall  of  its  building  on  Tuesday  evening,  April  3,  1900, 
at  eight  o'clock,  pursuant  to  notice. 

President  JOHN  N.  JEWETT  in  the  chair. 

The  following  interesting  papers  were  presented,  and  read : 

FATHER  MARQUETTE: 

BY 

FRANKLIN  MACVEAGH. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  :  My  subject  is  Marquette.  Marquette 
the  martyr ;  hero  and  martyr.  Hero  if  intrepid  courage  in 
great  adventure,  and  vast  self-sacrifice  on  a  plane  of  noble 
enthusiasm  makes  a  hero— martyr  though  dying  by  the  sen- 
tence of  his  own  sacrifice.  And  martyr 'not  to  his  faith  only, 
but  to  his  faith  and  to  his  good  works  and  to  his  great  deeds 

alike. 

And  why  do  I  tell  this  twice  told  tale?    First,  I  tell 
because  I  am  fond  of  it  myself.    Again,  I  tell  it  because  it  is 
never  idle  to  stop  in  the  vast  hurry  of  our  bread-getting  and 
money-getting  life  to  contemplate  for  a  while  one  of  those 
rare  few  men  who,  though  illustrious  by  reason  of  the  his- 
torical importance  of  their  deeds,  have  their  first  claim  to 
the  reverence  of  the  world  by  reason  of  the  exceptional,  the 
phenomenal  elevation  of  their  characters,  their  aims  and 
their  private  lives.     Of  these  men  Marquette  is  one;  and 
they  are  rare  men  indeed.     Admitted  to  the  parliament  of 
history  by  their  celebrity,  they  represent  in  it  not  alone  what 
is  illustrious ;  but  they  represent  there,  what  else  would  find 
no  representation  in  it,  the  unsung,  the  uncommemorated 
virtue  of  the  world.  Their  constituency  is  the  scattered  com- 
munity of  men  and  women,  of  whatever  nations  or  relig- 
ions or  times,  whose  lives  are  pure  and  whose  aims  are  noble. 

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254 

And  then,  in  the  third  place,  it  is  right,  I  think,  to  remind 
ourselves  that,  though  individuals  here  and  there  certainly 
do  so,  we  do  not  as  a  community  appreciate  the  interest  of 
the  early  history  of  the  West,  nor  the  very  remarkable  men 
who  figured  in  it.  Nor  can  it  be  amiss  before  a  Chicago 
audience  to  recall,  from  the  almost  neglected  history  of  the 
very  spot  on  which  we  live,  the  figure  of  a  man  whose  fame 
and  character  would  shed  upon  Chicago  the  light  of  an  ex- 
ceptional distinction  if  the  city  would  but  learn  to  recognize 
them  with  sympathy  and  treasure  them  with  becoming  rev- 
erence :  a  fame  that  is  better  understood  almost  everywhere 
else  than  here  where  it  might  properly  be  a  household  word 
— a  household  word  conferring  a  constant  benefaction. 
There  was  a  particular  suggestion  years  ago  to  see  to  it  that 
the  fame  of  Marquette  is  cherished  among  us.  It  was  given 
by  the  two-hundredth  anniversary  of  Marquette's  visit  here. 
An  effort  was  made  to  have  that  significant  anniversary  ap- 
propriately recognized ;  but  quite  without  avail.  Other 
prominent  things  which  were  the  expressions  and  interests 
of  our  materialism  and  our  ever-present  present,  quite 
crowded  out  thoughts  of  heroes  and  of  the  past.  The  pres- 
ent in  this  city  is  surely  not  "the  fleeting  present" ;  for  it 
seems  everlasting.  We  must  confess  that  Chicago  in  the 
aggregate  has  as  yet  no  historic  feeling,  and  but  little  senti- 
mental life  of  any  sort.  Her  life  for  the  most  part  is  in  to- 
day; she  is  not  even  profoundly  interested  in  the  future 
yet.  And  regard  for  the  past,  as  we  all  know,  comes  latest. 
Regard  for  the  past  is  the  interest  of  mature  life,  and  Chi- 
cago is  yet  in  her  first  fine  vigorous  and  somewhat  thought- 
less youth.  A  boy,  at  first,  lives  entirely  in  the  present.  To- 
day is  all  of  life  to  him  for  his  mind  is  narrow  and  his  ex- 
istence a  monotone.  By  and  by  as  he  grows  toward  man- 
hood he  lives  also  in  the  future — as  imagination  becomes  a 
force  in  him.  Later  still  when  he  has  grown  to  the  full 
stature  of  matured  manhood  he  lives  partly  in  the  past — 
because  in  the  man  memory  becomes  infused  with  sentiment 
and  reason.  But  surely  the  early  history  of  the  West  ought 
to  stir  us.  It  ought  to  be  a  part  of  our  treasures.  It  is  in- 
spiring and  it  is  ours.  If  it  does  not  altogether  belong  to 


255 

our  race  it  is  at  any  rate  a  part  of  the  land  which  is  now  be- 
coming in  the  true  sense  our  home. 

And  this  first  history  of  the  West  has  the  wider  interest 
still  of  a  famous  part,  a  heroic  part  even  if  a  later  part  of 
the  great  history  of  the  new  birth  of  the  world.  For  the 
grand  invasion  of  this  continent  by  Martitime  Europe,  for 
which  the  surprising  way  was  opened  by  the  great  enter- 
prise of  great  Columbus,  was  an  effect  of  that 
marvelous  expansive  impulse,  itself  an  expression  of 
the  noble  impatience  of  the  Renascence,  which  widened 
the  narrow  horizon  of  Europe  until  it  became 
coterminous  with  the  world.  The  world  of  Europe  was 
hampered  by  horizons  which  defeated  knowledge; 
but  there  gathered  there  such  a  compressed  force  of 
the  spirit  of  discovery  and  adventure  that  it  needs  must 
burst  forth  and  overrun  the  globe.  On  every  side,  the  hori- 
zon of  Europe  was  driven  back  by  a  legion  of  adventurous 
men  who  were  strangers  to  fear  and  to  fatigue.  American 
exploration  and  colonization  were  born  of  the  impulse  of 
the  Renascence.  And  matter  of  fact  as  it  is  to-day  Amer- 
ica's early  days  are  a  romance.  It  was  hid  from  the  world 
by  seas  that  stretched  away,  in  the  imaginations  of  men, 
into  gloom  and  death ;  and  for  centuries  it  lay  awaiting  dis- 
covery. 

Europe  at  last  was  equal  to  such  great  enterprise.  But 
it  took  what  the  world  could  muster  of  science ;  and  added 
to  this  a  courage  disciplined  by  the  Moorish  Wars,  sup- 
ported by  religious  enthusiasm  and  inspired  by  the  ad- 
venturous spirit  of  a  new  era.  The  first  history  of  America 
is  the  story  of  restless  adventure;  of  cavaliers  whose  ex- 
ploits belittle  fiction ;  of  sailors  who  in  their  crazy  crafts  be- 
lieved themselves  to  be  cavaliers ;  of  workmen  who  had  the 
hearts  of  soldiers ;  of  Puritans  who  carried  in  their  brave 
souls  the  seeds  of  a  free  nation ;  of  priests  who  were  heroes 
and  martyrs;  of  women  who  were  saints  upon  Earth.  In 
the  midst  of  this  there  was  much  that  was  cruel,  much  that 
was  mean ;  but  far  above  all  else  the  early  history  of  America 
was  distinguished  superlatively  by  courage,  adventure,  high 
purpose,  Christian  heroism,  chivalry  and  romance. 


256 

In  this  Christian  heroism,  this  romance,  the  history  of 
the  West  fully  shares ;  and  in  the  history  of  the  West  though 
Marquette  is  not  the  greatest  figure,  of  the  great  figures  he 
is  the  purest,  the  noblest  and  the  best. 

At  once  upon  the  discovery  of  America,  Spain,  Portugal, 
England  and  France  began  to  explore,  to  despoil,  to  colo- 
nize and  to  convert  it.  France  alone  of  these  nations  failed 
utterly  to  maintain  herself.  Except  a  remnant  on  the  Lower 
St.  Lawrence  and  some  traces  along  the  Mississippi,  there 
remains  of  France  in  America  only  a  few  local  names,  and 
the  traditions  of  a  generous  and  humane  policy  that  was 
loftily  maintained  for  a  time  by  the  ready  sacrifices  of  he- 
roic men.  Of  these  nations  Spain  and  France  equally  pro- 
claimed a  religious  with  their  secular  purpose;  but  France, 
and  France  only,  maintained  her  religious  designs  with  such 
deep  devotion  and  lofty  heroism  as  must  for  all  time  chal- 
lenge the  admiration  of  the  world.  England,  however,  and 
France  alike,  were  earnest  and  sincere.  But  their  characters 
differed  utterly;  their  policy  and  methods  as  utterly;  and 
their  success  differed  as  widely  as  these.  The  story  of  the 
English  in  America  is  relatively  matter  of  fact  history,  in- 
teresting especially  to  the  political  student.  The  story  of 
the  French  is  only  interesting  to  the  political  student  as  a 
complete  political  failure,  but  to  all  men  of  sentiment  as 
an  episode,  a  romance  creditable  in  the  highest  degree  to 
humanity. 

Of  the  history  of  France  in  America,  no  other  portion  is 
so  highly  to  her  honor,  or  to  the  honor  of  humanity,  as  the 
lives  and  labors  of  her  Missionary  Priests.  And  of  all  the 
wonderful  line  of  missionaries  of  France,  in  the  New  World, 
Marquette  is  easily  the  most  distinguished. 

Let  us  not  misconceive  the  spirit  and  lives  of  the  French 
missionaries  in  North  America  because  of  our  familiarity 
with  present  missionary  ideas  and  conditions.  We  can 
hardly  say  too  much  in  praise  of  contemporary  missionaries, 
but  conditions  have  changed.  Marquette  and  his  compeers 
traveled  on  snow-shoes  when  they  did  not  go  barefoot ;  they 
lived  on  moss  when  they  could  not  luxuriously  feast  upon 
pounded  maize;  they  lived  in  bark  huts  when  fortunate 
enough  to  sleep  indoors;  and  they  died  of  labor  and  ex- 


257 

posure  when  they  were  not  murdered  by  the  Indians.  Their 
missions,  therefore,  existed  without  great  revenues ;  and  the 
most  they  asked  of  their  friends  at  home  was  prayers  for 
the  souls  they  had  come  to  save. 

Nor  let  us  fail  to  conceive  the  phenomenal  nobleness  of 
these  French  men  because  they  were  heroes  and  martyrs  in 
the  name  of  a  church  that  may  not  be  ours,  and  which  ex- 
presses itself  in  ways  that  we  may  not  prefer.  Whosesoever 
church  it  is  and  whosesoever  it  is  not,  it  is  at  least  a  great 
church  beyond  compare;  and  it  has  in  its  history  splendid 
epochs,  when  it  commanded  greater  self-sacrifice  and  higher 
endeavor  than  Christianity  has  otherwise  known  since  its 
first  lofty  days.  One  such  epoch,  raised  distinctly  above  the 
level  of  the  centuries,  was  the  epoch  of  the  French  Jesuits 
in  North  America.  They  were  the  elect  of  a  society  which 
had  a  first  claim  upon  the  most  fervent  souls.  The  records 
of  humanity  will  be  sought  in  vain  for  the  story  of  purer 
lives,  of  more  steadfast  apostleship  or  of  sterner  martyr- 
doms. Jogues,  Bressani,  Daniel,  Brebeuf,  Lalemant,  Gar- 
nier,  Marquette,  living  and  dying,  illustrated  the  loftiest  vir- 
tue in  the  world.  No  praise  is  too  extravagant ;  no  language 
is  too  sacred  to  apply  to  them.  They  were  a  "Glorious  Com- 
pany of  Apostles;"  they  were  a  "Noble  Army  of  Martyrs." 

Jacques  Marquette  was  born  at  Laon,  France,  in  1637 — 
June  loth — and  died  about  Easter  time,  May  i8th,  1675.  ^ 
have  heard  him  called  "old  Father  Marquette" — but  he  died 
when  he  was  only  37.  It  does  not  take  very  long,  you  see, 
for  a  great  soul  to  impress  itself  for  all  time  upon  the  heart 
of  the  world. 

He  came  to  America  in  1666,  though  his  American 
career  hardly  began  until  1668.  His  career,  therefore,  so 
far  as  the  world  knows  it,  lasted  but  seven  years.  Is  it  not 
wonderful  how  quickly  and  easily  the  world  finds  out  its 
heroes?  His  whole  life  was  short,  his  American  life  very 
short ;  his  career  was  in  a  wilderness ;  and  he  has  no 
biographer.  But  who  questions  the  fixity  of  his  historical 
position?  Who  doubts  the  growth  of  his  fame  and  influence 
as  the  West  awakens  step  by  step  to  a  sense  of  its  history? 

Of  his  life  at  home  in  France — that  is  of  nearly  the  first 
thirty  of  the  short  thirty-seven  years  of  this  young  man's 


life,  scarcely  anything  is  told.  He  was  a  well  born  gentle- 
man— a  man  of  an  ancient  and  distinguished  family — of  a 
family  that  mingled  in  affairs  of  state  and  in  works  of 
philanthropy — of  a  family  that  one  hundred  years  later  sent 
three  young  men  to  fight  in  our  Revolutionary  War  with 
LaFayette  and  de  Rochambeau.  So  much  is  known.  Then 
at  17  he  became  a  Jesuit  like  many  another  ardent  youth; 
and  in  due  time  he  became  a  priest.  That  is  nearly  all. 

In  1666,  he  came  to  America  as  a  missionary.  And  no 
man  ever  went  into  a  new  world  more  worthily.  Of  that 
you  may  feel  perfectly  sure.  He  came  first  to  serve  religion 
and  to  spread  its  beneficent  life  and  its  sure  salvation.  More 
than  one  man  of  his  time  did  that  as  well.  None  did  it  bet- 
ter. But  France,  as  I  have  said,  had  both  a  religious  and  a 
secular  purpose  in  America.  No  other  man  of  France, 
whether  priest  or  layman,  combined  in  his  own  labors  the 
best  parts  of  both  these  purposes  as  did  Marquette.  The 
significance  of  his  American  life  is,  therefore,  both  political 
and  religious.  He  was  a  missionary  and  a  discoverer.  He 
was  no  less  a  missionary  because  a  discoverer.  He  quit  the 
easy  life  of  a  French  gentleman,  when  to  be  a  French  gentle- 
man was  the  finest  thing  in  the  world,  and  exchanged  it  for 
the  life  of  a  priest  and  missionary  because  he  was  by  nature 
of  the  stuff  from  which  the  grandest  priests  and  missionaries 
are  made. 

When  Marquette  came  to  America,  France  had  long 
been  in  possession  of  Canada  on  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
lower  lakes;  and  the  time  was  at  hand  to  push  onward 
through  the  wilderness  to  the  upper  lakes.  In  this  new  ad- 
vance Marquette  was  destined  for  a  distinguished  part.  He 
was  in  a  short  time  sent  into  this  frontier  field — the  frontier 
of  a  frontier.  There  he  spent  five  of  his  famous  seven  years. 
He  learned  six  Indian  languages,  he  journeyed  widely,  he 
established  missions  and  founded  towns,  he  taught  and 
preached.  In  brief  he  led  the  life  of  a  Jesuit  Missionary  in 
the  wilds  of  Early  America.  Can  we  mistake  the  life  he  led  ? 
Five  years — five  years  in  the  wilds  on  our  Northern  lakes 
two  hundred  years  ago — four  thousand  miles  from  home, 
hundreds  of  miles  of  wilderness  from  even  a  semblance  of 
France.  Five  years  that  seem  to  us  so  short ;  that  must  have 


259 

been  so  long.  Five  years  in  the  savage  North  without  one 
day  of  home  or  France — without  one  hope  of  home  or 
France.  Five  years  in  which  this  cultured  mind  had  not 
one  touch  with  culture,  in  which  this  loving  heart  had  not 
one  comfort  of  home.  In  which  he  carried  his  life  in  his 
hand,  and  had  not  one  advantage  of  civilization  or  one  mo- 
ment's protection  of  law.  Five  years  in  which  perished 
every  dream  of  home  or  country.  Snow  and  ice  and  sav- 
ages for  five  winters.  He  had  nothing  to  live  for  but  duty 
and  nothing  to  hope  for  but  death.  And  when  his  magnifi- 
cent duty  was  done  nothing  came  but  death.  Is  it  a  wonder 
that  these  years,  though  they  only  confirmed  his  purpose  to. 
devote  every  breath,  every  shred  of  his  life  to  his  mission 
brought  him  broken  health  and  a  constitution  beyond  repair  ? 
This  young  man  did  absolutely  all  he  could ;  and  five  ardent 
years  consumed  his  strength.  A  fatal  malady  took  hold 
upon  him ;  and  though  in  the  next  two  years  he  grew  better 
and  worse,  at  the  end  he  died. 

Did  he  spend  his  invalid  life  in  repose?  It  is  a  shame 
to  ask  it.  These  two  years  are  the  years  especially  that 
made  him  famous. 

During  his  life  on  the  lakes — in  the  advance  of  the 
French  movement  in  America — he  conceived  and  faithfully 
cherished  the  design  of  discovering  the  Mississippi.  This 
purpose  possessed  his  imagination;  and  I  have  sometimes 
fancied  him  standing  upon  some  outlook  on  the  shore  of 
Lake  Superior,  in  the  full  expression  of  his  noble  spirit, 
looking  into  the  West  and  feeding  his  lonely  soul  with  vis- 
ions of  his  great  adventure.  Not,  however,  with  the  pur- 
pose of  discovery  only  was  his  mind  inflamed.  He  knew 
the  political  and  commercial  and  scientific  importance  of  the 
discovery  and  he  valued  it  for  the  sake  of  France.  But  he 
longed,  also,  to  carry  the  gospel  to  the  far-away  tribes  on 
the  banks  of  that  unknown  river,  and  to  establish  a  mission 
among  them.  It  is  this  double  purpose  and  this  double  de- 
votion that  distinguished  Marquette  from  other  great  dis- 
coverers, and  from  other  great  priests. 

He  was  obliged  to  defer  his  expedition  from  time  to 
time;  but  by  and  by,  in  1673,  Frontenac,  the  French  Gov- 
ernor at  Quebec,  organized  a  party  for  the  discovery  under 


26o 

the  command  of  Joliet,  after  whom  our  neighboring  city  is 
named.  He  sent  Joliet  to  Marquette  at  the  Straits  of 
Mackinac;  and  Marquette  was  appointed  by  his  superior  to 
be  Joliet's  associate  in  the  exploration.  Joliet  was  by  nature 
a  trader ;  Marquette  was  by  nature  a  discoverer ;  which  per- 
haps explains  how  to  Marquette,  without  effort  of  his,  the 
honor  of  the  discovery  chiefly  clings. 

With  five  Frenchmen  Marquette  and  Joliet  on  May  17, 
1673,  set  forth.  They  followed  from  Mackinac  down  the 
west  side  of  Green  Bay  to  the  present  town  of  Green  Bay 
— then  already  established.  Thence  along  the  Fox  River 
and  through  Winnebago  Lake;  again  along  the  Fox  to  a 
portage  between  the  Fox  and  the  head-waters  of  the  Wis- 
consin. Thence  to  the  Wisconsin  and  down  this  "wild 
beautiful  river,"  as  another  traveler  called  it  a  few  years 
later,  until  it  came  to  the  great  Mississippi,  at  the  point 
where  Prairie  du  Chien  now  stands.  Then  they  turned 
their  canoes  into  the  great  unknown  river  and  steered  them 
as  far  as  the  Arkansas,  or  the  unnamed  river  that  is  now 
called  the  Arkansas,  exploring  and  preaching  and  teaching 
as  they  went.  They  were  now  convinced  that  the  great 
river  flowed  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  this  completed 
their  purpose ;  and  growing  fearful  lest  they  should  be  slain 
and  thus  the  great  fruits  of  their  discovery  be  lost  to  France, 
they  turned  back  and  came  paddling  their  canoes  laboriously 
against  the  current  until  they  reached  the  Illinois,  into  which 
they  turned.  They  came  slowly,  still  exploring  and  preach- 
ing, along  the  Illinois,  the  Desplaines  and  the  Chicago 
rivers  to  Lake  Michigan  and  then  onward  back  to  the 
Straits.  This  is  the  first  time  the  site  of  Chicago  was  vis- 
ited by  civilized  men. 

Such  is  the  mere  bare  outline  of  the  great  discovery.  It 
is  not  difficult,  however,  for  us  now  to  appreciate  its  im- 
portance nor  to  fill  in  the  colors  of  the  adventure.  The 
Mississippi  was  the  objective  of  Western  discovery  in  the 
time  of  Marquette.  Its  importance  to  France  was  exceed- 
ingly great,  for  France,  England  and  Spain  were  competing 
for  supremacy  in  America.  Here  was  a  great  continental 
river  unknown  except  by  rumor  to  any  European.  It  was 
believed  to  be  the  great  artery  of  the  Continent  and  that  its 


26l 

possession  by  either  of  the  great  rivals  would  almost  decide 
the  contest.  Settlement — colonization — at  first  but  fringed 
the  Continent  along  its  eastern  shores.  France  slowly 
pushed  her  way  inward  to  the  great  lakes;  but  cautiously, 
one  station  giving  neighborhood  to  another  a  little  in  ad- 
vance. Then  came  the  time  when  discovery  launched  itself 
and  sailed  away  into  unknown  regions,  as  in  the  careers  of 
Cortes  and  Pizarro,  and  Marquette  with  his  small  party  cut 
loose  from  all  that  was  known  and  boldly  sought  the  allur- 
ing but  dangerous  unknown. 

France  had  pushed  its  commerce  inland  to  the  lakes  and 
was  carrying  its  wares  laboriously  a  thousand  miles.  If  a 
great  outlet  could  be  found  by  river  to  the  Atlantic  then 
trade  it  was  thought  would  flow  easily  as  in  Europe.  Then 
wealth  need  no  longer  be  dragged  to  France,  but  would 
flow  in  an  easy  and  affluent  current.  And  so  Empire  would 
follow,  as  Empire  and  Culture  always  have  followed,  in  the 
footsteps  of  successful  commerce. 

Rumor  carried  by  the  Indian  tribes  told  of  this  great 
river;  which  might  flow  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  or  might 
perchance  carry  the  adventurous  traveler  to  the  Vermillion 
Sea.  And  rumor  did  not  fail  to  surround  the  unknown 
river  with  every  terror  that  could  appal  or  dissuade  discov- 
ery. With  these  Marquette  was  familiar.  But  he  loved 
France  more  than  his  life ;  and  he  also  heard  in  imagination 
night  and  day,  the  piteous  call  of  the  far-away  tribes  to  come 
with  his  helpful  gospel  and  save  them  from  eternal  death. 
He  had  the  deep  devotion  of  the  missionary,  and  the  high 
conception  and  courage  of  the  discoverer.  It  was  no  holiday 
excursion  to  him.  He  knew  the  hazard.  He  said,  he  gladly 
exposed  his  life ;  and  Marquette  never  boasted. 

And  he  did  expose  his  life  for  days  and  nights  continu- 
ally until  months  rolled  away.  Contemplate  the  little  band 
of  seven  exploring  twenty-seven  hundred  miles  through  a 
region  where  the  face  of  a  civilized  man  had  never  been  seen 
before.  Danger  on  every  side  of  them.  No  refuge  any- 
where outside  of  their  steady  courage.  Among  a  people 
trained  to  treachery  and  with  whom  pity  had  no  prompter 
when  policy  was  silent.  A  race  among  whom  the  murder  of 
a  stranger  was  not  a  crime;  among  whom  hospitality  did 


262 

not  include  the  idea  of  protection;  whose  only  lenity  pro- 
ceeded from  fear  or  indifference.  Such  men  Marquette 
found  before  him,  behind  him  and  about  him  when  he  went 
to  find  the  great  river,  and  to  carry  salvation  to  lost  nations 
on  its  borders. 

Marquette's  health  was  now  completely  shattered.  He 
did  not  repine.  He  was  content.  He  had  done  his  duty. 
He  had  served  God  and  his  country.  He  had,  he  believed, 
saved  souls,  and  had  done  a  great  service  to  the  Future. 
To  his  simple  soul  that  was  enough  and  more  than  enough. 
Nor  did  he  go  or  seek  to  go  to  Quebec,  where  praise  and 
reputation  awaited  him.  He  did  not  attempt  to  place  his 
great  service  before  the  Government.  He  stayed  at  his  fron- 
tier post.  Nor  did  he  ever  go  to  Quebec  or  France.  He 
had  no  time  to  protect  his  fame.  His  remaining  days  were 
too  short  and  precious  to  be  given  to  personal  glory.  He 
purposed  to  die  in  the  wilderness  doing  his  duty.  Would 
not  a  familiar  knowledge  of  such  a  man  be  of  untold  value 
to  the  men  and  the  youth  of  this  city  ? 

Nursing  his  health  for  the  completion  of  his  long  cher- 
ished design,  he  persuaded  himself,  after  a  year  of  further 
labor  at  the  Straits,  that  he  was  equal  to  the  one  task  which 
especially  remained.  This  was  to  establish,  to  the  honor  of 
The  Virgin  and  for  the  salvation  of  souls,  a  mission  on  the 
banks  of  the  Illinois.  This  his  cherished  design  he  hoped  to 
complete,  knowing  it  was  to  be  the  last  service  of  his  life — 
the  crowning  sacrifice  of  those  last  two  years  that  have 
brought  him  enduring  fame. 

He  journeyed  hundreds  of  miles  in  the  face  of  winter 
into  the  lonely  and  savage  wilderness.  In  November  or  De- 
cember, with  two  attendants,  he  reached  the  Chicago  river. 
Here  his  health  again  gave  away ;  and  so  weak  and  ill  had 
he  become  that  though  so  near  the  tribes  he  came  to  save 
he  could  go  no  further.  For  four  months  he  lived  upon  the 
desolate  banks  of  our  river,  in  mid-winter.  His  faithful  at- 
tendants built  a  hut  in  which  he  lived.  Thus  Marquette  be- 
came again  identified  with  Chicago — this  time  as  the  first 
civilized  resident  upon  its  site ;  and  this  constitutes  the  great- 
est honor  of  which  this  city  can  boast. 

Lying  or  weakly  sitting  in  his  lonely  hut  on  the  banks 


of  our  river,  the  whole  desolate  region  covered  with  snow 
and  ice,  with  desolation  and  wilderness  all  about  him,  him- 
self chilled  with  the  cruel  winter  winds  of  our  prairie  and 
lake,  his  health  long  since  gone  and  his  strength  now  gone 
too,  and  death  standing  daily  at  his  lonely  side,  the  great, 
gentle  spirit  of  Marquette  never  revealed  itself  more 
superbly.  No  matter  his  misfortunes,  he  permitted  no 
thought  but  of  his  duty ;  no  matter  his  helplessness,  he  con- 
templated no  refuge  but  the  banks  of  the  Illinois.  He  spent 
days  and  nights  in  religious  devotions,  and  at  last  spent  nine 
days  in  fasting  and  sacrifice  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  might 
still  permit  him  to  carry  at  least  one  word  of  the  Gospel  to 
the  Indians  of  the  Illinois.  And  he  believed  the  Virgin 
granted  his  prayer. 

Such  a  life  upon  the  site  of  this  city — the  first  civilized 
life  in  its  history — might  well  have  dedicated  it  at  the  least 
to  the  highest  ambitions  of  citizenship. 

About  the  end  of  March — the  year  was  1675 — he  felt 
himself  revive  at  last,  and  having  faith  that  strength  would 
be  vouchsafed  until  he  reached  his  aim  he  journeyed  to  Kas- 
kaskia — an  Indian  town  he  named  himself,  and  which  was 
near  where  Ottawa  or  rather  Utica  now  is.  Knowing  his 
time  was  short  he  preached  and  taught  as  best  he  could  and 
lost  no  time.  He  knew  he  should  not  preach  again.  And 
when  he  had  taught  and  preached  his  last  and  knew  his  end 
was  near,  with  his  faithful  men  he  took  the  way  to  Mack- 
inac.  They  reached  our  lake  and  started  in  their  rude 
canoes  around  its  bend  and  down  its  eastern  shore.  They 
journeyed  on  a  speck  of  civilization  in  that  wide  expanse  of 
savage  lake  and  land ;  and  as  they  paddled  their  canoes  one 
afternoon  in  that  lonely  springtime,  the  good  Marquette, 
who  calmly  felt  the  long  looked  for  end  had  come,  asked 
his  men  to  take  him  to  the  shore  just  where  a  little  river, 
since  fondly  named  for  him,  ran  down  into  the  lake.  They 
took  him  to  the  shore  and  built  a  birch-bark  hut  in  which  he 
might  lie  down  and  rest.  He  told  them  though  that  he 
should  not  live,  and  asked  that  they  would  make  his  grave, 
when  he  was  dead,  near  where  he  lay.  He  thanked  them  for 
their  constant  kindness,  regretted  to  them  that  he  had  been 
such  trouble,  then  said  good  night  and  bade  them  go  and 


264 

sleep,  saying  that  he  would  call  them  when  it  was  necessary. 
In  the  middle  hours  of  that  night  a  quiet  voice  awakened 
the  sleepers.  He  said  his  hour  had  come  at  last.  He  then 
thanked  God  that  He  permitted  him  to  die  a  missionary  in 
the  Wilderness ;  and  asked  his  men  to  hold  for  him  a  crucifix 
on  which  he  gazed  until  the  last.  Even  Mackinac,  even  that 
much  of  home  and  love,  he  did  not  reach. 

And  so  lived  and  died  Father  Marquette.  Was  he  not 
both  hero  and  martyr  ? 

And  now  I  am  done.  Bancroft  has  said  "The  West  will 
build  his  monument."  I  trust  it  may.  Noble,  gentle,  loving, 
brave  Marquette!  Honors  paid  to  him  would  have  the 
peculiar  grace  of  honors  unsought  and  uncontemplated.  He 
did  not  seek  to  fill  a  great  place  among  his  contemporaries ; 
and  he  died  without  a  thought  of  posterity  or  fame. 


MARQUETTE  AT  MICHILLIMACKINAC : 

BY 

EDWARD  OSGOOD  BROWN. 

After  the  great  pleasure  that  you  must  have  felt  with  me 
in  hearing  the  very  delightful  paper  on  Father  Marquette 
which  Mr.  MacVeagh  has  just  given  us,  you  will  feel  I  am 
sure,  but  slight,  if  any  disappointment  when  I  say  to  you,  as 
I  am  obliged  to  do,  that  although  I  am  announced  also  for  a 
"paper"  this  evening,  it  is  of  the  very  slightest,  and  that  for 
the  few  words  which  I  have  to  say,  "Marquette  at  Macki- 
nac" is  hardly  a  suitable  title.  I  could  suggest,  however, 
myself,  nothing  better  than  "Marquette  at  Michillimacki- 
nac,"  and  this  suggestion  reached  your  Secretary  too  late 
for  a  correction  of  his  notice. 

The  name,  Mackinaw,  or  Mackinac,  as  contrary  to  all 
principles  of  euphony  and  all  local  usage  and  tradition,  In- 
dian, French  and  English — recent  hotel  residents  of  the 
beautiful  island  at  the  entrance  to  Lake  Michigan,  insist 
upon  pronouncing  it,  is  generally  and  I  suppose  properly 
applied  to  the  island  itself — but  the  whole  country  about  the 
Straits  between  the  Northern  and  Southern  peninsulas  of 
Michigan  from  the  Sault  St.  Marie  on  the  North  to  Arbor 


265 

Croche — or  Harbor  Springs — on  one  side,  and  Green  Bay 
on  the  other,  on  the  South — was  known  as  Michillimackinac 
in  the  time  of  Father  Marquette.  And  it  is  of  the  traditions 
relating  to  his  life,  and  labors,  death  and  burial  in  that  coun- 
try that  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words.  Of  course  Marquette, 
to  whom  the  Straits  of  Mackinac  were  a  home  from  1671  to 
1673,  must  frequently  have  visited  the  Turtle's  Back,  as  the 
Indian  called  the  beautiful  and  loftily  rising  Island  of  Mack- 
inac itself,  but  despite  the  persistency  of  a  tradition  among 
the  Indians  and  half-breeds,  fostered  by  the  local  pride  of 
resident  clergymen  of  the  island,  that  he  settled  there  origin- 
ally, when,  in  1671,  with  his  Huron  Indian  flock  flying  be- 
fore the  Sioux  from  the  Mission  of  St.  Esprit  at  Lapointe 
near  the  Western  End  of  Lake  Superior,  he  came  to 
Michillimackinac,  there  is  scant  proof  of  the  fact,  if  it  be 
one. 

What  is  certain  is,  that  very  soon,  at  all  events,  he  and 
his  flock  had  established  themselves  on  the  Mainland — the 
Northern  Peninsula  of  Michigan — and  named  the  Mission 
St.  Ignace.  There,  in  1672,  a  chapel  had  been  built  sur- 
rounded by  the  cabins  of  the  Indians,  the  whole  village  being 
enclosed  within  a  stockade,  for  better  protection  against  ene- 
mies. This  place  is  at  the  Northern  end  of  the  present  vil- 
lage or  City  of  St.  Ignace.  I  can  identify  it  to  those  who  may 
on  one  of  the  Lake  Superior  steamers  have  stopped  at  the 
pier  at  St.  Ignace  four  miles  this  side  of  Mackinac  Island — 
as  being  at  the  point  on  the  long,  long  street  which  sweeps 
around  the  bay  and  forms  the  main  part  of  that  settlement, 
which  is  most  remote  from  that  stopping  place. 

Father  Charlevoix,  and  following  him  evidently,  later 
writers,  have  expressed  wonder  at  Father  Marquette's 
selecting  what  they  term  so  undesirable  a  place  for  his  Mis- 
sion and  the  settlement  of  the  Hurons.  To  justify  that  won- 
der they  speak  of  the  intense  cold  and  the  sterility  of  the 
soil. 

Charlevoix  says  that  Father  Marquette  determined  the 
choice  of  the  spot ;  but  Father  Marquette  himself  says  that 
the  Indians  had  previously  signified  their  design  to  settle 
there,  led  by  the  abundance  of  game,  the  great  quantity  of 
fish  and  the  adaptability  of  the  soil  for  maize,  the  Indian's 
chief  agricultural  product. 


266 

But  apart  from  the  question  whether  Father  Marquette 
located  the  Indians,  rather  than  the  Indians  Father  Mar- 
quette, Charlevoix  seems  to  me  to  speak  with  less  sagacity 
than  is  usual  in  a  Jesuit  priest,  in  so  expressing  himself.  If 
Father  Marquette  did  determine  the  place  of  settlement,  it 
seems  to  me  easy  to  understand. 

The  Jesuit  Missionaries  in  America,  in  their  burning  zeal 
had  exiled  themselves  from  the  world  of  artistic  beauty  into 
which  they  were  born,  they  had  doomed  themselves  to  much 
that  was  hateful  and  disgusting — to  sodden  forests  and 
smoky  wigwams;  to  filthy  food  and  unclean  companions; 
but  they  had  preserved  their  love  of  beauty,  and  nature  to 
them  took  the  place  of  art.  I  wonder  not,  and  who  that  is 
familiar  with  Michillimackinac  can  wonder,  that  Father 
Marquette  should  have  been  glad  to  settle  where  a  wonder- 
fully beautiful  winter  landscape  alternates  with  an  incom- 
parable one  of  shining  summer  seas? 

On  the  contrary  I  can  well  imagine  him,  when  first  he 
gazed  from  the  bluffs  upon  the  country  called  Michillimack- 
inac, exclaiming,  as  Scott  makes  King  James,  of  Loch  Kat- 
rina: 

"And  what  a  scene  were  here,    *    * 

For  princely  pomp  or  churchman's  pride ! 

On  this  bold  brow  a  lordly  tower, 

In  that  soft  vale  a  lady's  bower ! 

On  yonder  meadow  far  away, 

The  turrets  of  a  cloister  gray ! 

How  blithely  might  the  bugle  horn 

Chide  on  this  Lake  the  lingering  morn  ! 

And  when  the  midnight  moon  should  lave 

Her  forehead  in  the  silver  wave, 
.  How  solemn  on  the  ear  would  come 

The  holy  matin's  distant  hum !" 

Until  the  I7th  of  May,  1673,  Marquette  labored  at  this 
Mission  with  abundant  and  encouraging  results,  to  judge 
from  his  letter  to  his  superior  in  1672.  He  says  that  he  had 
almost  five  hundred  Indians  about  him,  who  wished  to  be 
Christians,  who  listened  with  eagerness  to  his  teaching,  who 
brought  their  children  to  the  chapel  to  be  baptized,  and  came 
regularly  to  prayers.  Be  the  wind  or  cold  what  it  might, 
many  Indians  came  twice  a  day  to  the  chapel.  When  he  was 
obliged  to  go  to  the  Sault  for  a  fortnight,  they  counted  the 


267 

days  of  his  absence,  repaired  to  the  chapel  for  prayers  as 
though  he  were  present,  and  welcomed  him  back  with  joy. 

"The  minds,"  he  writes,  "of  the  Indians  here  are  now 
more  mild,  tractable  and  better  disposed  to  receive  instruc- 
tion than  in  any  other  part." 

But  the  Illinois  mission  that  he  had  planned,  and  the 
Great  River  that  he  wished  to  explore  and  dedicate  to  Mary, 
were  always  in  his  thought,  and  it  was  with  great  joy,  there- 
fore, that,  in  the  spring  of  1673,  he  heard  that  he  had  been 
ordered  by  his  superior  to  turn  over  the  mission  at  Michilli- 
mackinac  to  a  successor  and  himself  accompany  Louis  Joliet, 
designated  by  the  governor  of  Canada,  in  the  exploration  of 
the  Mississippi. 

Mr.  MacVeagh  has  told  you  of  that  journey.  Mar- 
quette  did  not  return  from  it  to  the  mission  of  St.  Ignace, 
but  stopped  during  a  whole  year,  from  the  autumn  of  1673 
to  the  last  days  of  October,  1674,  at  the  mission  of  St.  Fran- 
cis Xavier  on  Green  Bay.  When,  after  his  second  visit  to 
the  Illinois  Indians,  he  died,  on  his  return  journey  to  Mich- 
illimackinac,  as  Mr.  MacVeagh  has  told  you,  it  was  near 
where  stands  the  present  City  of  Ludington. 

Twice  a  wooden  cross  has  been  raised  to  mark  the  spot — 
once  when  his  companions  left  him  there  to  keep  on  their 
saddened  way  to  Michillimackinac,  and  once  again  when,  in 
1821,  a  man  who  was,  at  the  same  time,  the  last  of  the  great 
French  Missionary  priests  and  the  first  of  a  long  series  of 
true  American  Apostles — Father  Gabriel  Richard — with  the 
assistance  of  Indians,  sought  out  the  spot,  raised  over  it  a 
wooden  cross,  and  cut  with  his  knife  upon  it: 

FR.  J.  MARQUETTE 
Died  here  ist  May,  1675. 

He  then  celebrated  mass  on  the  spot  and  pronounced  a 
eulogium  on  the  great  missionary. 

He  probably  thought  that  Marquette's  remains  still  lay 
there — for  at  that  time  the  Jesuit  Relations  which  told  of  the 
translation  of  his  body  to  the  mission  church  of  St.  Ignace, 
in  1677,  were  not  accessible  to  every  reader,  as  through  the 
work  of  modern  historians  and  scholars  they  have  since  be- 


268 

come.  Nevertheless,  the  tradition  that  some  great  mission- 
ary was  buried  on  the  site  of  the  St.  Ignace  mission  always 
existed.  Father  Jacker,  a  Jesuit  friend  of  mine — an  ardent 
and  judicious  historical  scholar,  who  in  late  years  had 
charge  of  the  present  parish  at  St.  Ignace  told  me,  in  1886, 
that  a  very  honest  and  intelligent  Indian  then  living,  one 
Joseph  Misitago,  had  told  him  that,  in  that  same  year,  1821, 
he  had  met  Father  Richard  lost  in  the  woods  back  of  the 
present  site  of  St.  Ignace,  where  he  had  gone  in  search  of 
any  traces  of  that  church  and  burial  place.  But  it  did  not 
appear  that  he  had  connected  the  tradition  with  Marquette. 

A  "Relation"  of  Father  Dablon,  however — lying  from 
1677  to  1800  in  the  Library  of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Quebec, 
and  by  the  last  Canadian  survivor  of  the  order,  Father  Cazot 
— in  1800,  (for  after  Canada  became  an  English  dominion 
the  reception  of  new  members  was  forbidden  for  a  time), 
turned  over  to  the  Gray  Nuns  of  the  Hotel  Dieu  and  by  them 
recommitted  to  the  Jesuits  who  in  1842  re-established  the 
society  in  Canada — was  with  Marquette's  journal  and  many 
other  valuable  papers  in  1852  discovered  and  published  by 
Dr.  Shea.  It  tells  of  Marquette's  death  and  proceeds : 

"God  did  not  choose  to  suffer  so  precious  a  deposit  to  re- 
main unhonored  and  forgotten  amid  the  woods.  The  Kis- 
kakon  Indians  who  for  the  last  ten  years  have  publicly  pro- 
fessed Christianity,  in  which  they  were  first  instructed  by 
Father  Marquette,  when  stationed  at  La  Pointe  du  Saint 
Esprit  at  the  extremity  of  Lake  Superior,  were  hunting  last 
winter  on  the  banks  of  Lake  Illinois.  As  they  were  return- 
ing early  in  spring,  they  resolved  to  pass  by  the  tomb  of 
their  good  Father,  whom  they  tenderly  loved,  and  God  even 
gave  them  the  thought  of  taking  his  remains  and  bringing 
them  to  our  church  at  the  mission  of  St.  Ignatius,  at  Mich- 
illimackinac,  where  they  reside. 

"They  accordingly  repaired  to  the  spot,  and,  after  some 
deliberation,  they  resolved  to  proceed  with  their  father,  as 
they  usually  do  with  those  whom  they  respect.  They  opened 
the  grave,  divested  the  body,  and  though  the  flesh  and  intes- 
tines were  all  dried  up,  they  found  it  whole,  the  skin  being 
in  no  way  injured.  This  did  not  prevent  their  dissecting  it, 
according  to  custom.  They  washed  the  bones  and  dried 


269 

them  in  the  sun.  Then  putting  them  neatly  in  a  box  of  birch 
bark  they  set  out  to  bear  them  to  the  house  of  St.  Ignatius. 
The  convoy  consisted  of  nearly  thirty  canoes,  in  excellent 
order,  including  even  a  good  number  of  Iroquois,  who  had 
joined  our  Algonquins,  to  honor  the  ceremony.  As  they 
approached  our  house,  Father  Nouvel,  who  is  Superior, 
went  to  meet  them  with  Father  Pierson,  accompanied  by  all 
the  French  and  Indians  of  the  place.  Having  caused  the 
convoy  to  stop,  he  made  the  ordinary  interrogations  to  ver- 
ify the  fact  that  the  body  which  they  bore  was  really  Father. 
Marquette's.  Then,  before  landing,  he  intoned  the  'De  Pro- 
fundis'  in  sight  of  the  thirty  canoes  still  on  the  water,  and  of 
all  the  people  on  the  shores.  After  this  the  body  was  carried 
to  the  church,  observing  all  that  the  ritual  prescribes  for 
such  ceremonies.  It  remained  exposed  under  a  pall 
stretched  as  if  over  a  coffin  all  that  day,  which  was  Pente- 
cost Monday,  the  8th  of  June,  (1677).  The  next  day,  when 
all  the  funeral  honors  had  been  paid  it,  it  was  deposited  in  a 
little  vault  in  the  middle  of  the  church,  where  he  reposes  as 
the  guardian  angel  of  our  Ottawa  Missions.  The  Indians 
often  come  to  pray  on  his  tomb." 

In  1877,  200  years  later,  Father  Jacker,  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  was  in  charge  of  the  Catholic  parish  at  the  present 
City  of  St.  Ignace.  He  was  a  most  intelligent  and  judicious 
man,  scholarly  and  intellectually  vigorous,  ardent,  indeed, 
in  his  duties  and  zealous  for  the  honor  of  his  order,  but  far 
removed  from  the  impulsive  enthusiasm  which  would  lead 
him  to  treat  rash  and  unfounded  suppositions  as  facts. 

I  will  not  open  a  controversy  which  was  quite  spirited 
twenty  years  ago,  as  to  whether  Father  Jacker's  belief  that 
the  site  of  the  Jesuit  church  of  1677  and  the  bones  of  Father 
Marquette  were  discovered  by  him  in  1877,  was  well 
founded  or  not.  He  had  such  a  belief,  and  his  parishioners 
at  his  suggestion  erected  a  very  modest  monument  to  mark 
the  spot.  I  can  only  quote  the  conclusion  of  a  letter  of  his 
to  Dr.  Shea,  the  historian,  in  which,  after  a  most  careful  an- 
alysis of  all  the  facts  bearing  on  the  matter,  he  says : 

"Is  it  then,  you  may  ask,  absolutely  certain  that  the  mod- 
est monument  erected  by  the  people  of  the  neighborhood,  in 
the  City  of  St.  Ignace,  marks  the  true  site  of  Father  Mar- 


270 

quette's  grave  ?  I  am  not  yet  prepared  to  say  so.  But  I  have 
not  heard  of,  nor  can  I  imagine,  any  circumstance  connected 
with  our  search,  that  would  warrant  any  positive  doubt. 
Everything  it  seems  to  me,  answers  the  requirements  of 
good  circumstantial  proof  so  nicely — thousands  of  judicial 
decisions  are  rendered  on  much  slighter  evidence — that  mere 
chance  could  have  brought  about  such  an  orderly  combina- 
tion of  facts  with  as  much  probability  only,  as  two  alphabets 
of  type,  scattered  on  the  ground,  might  be  expected  to  form, 
in  the  proper  succession  of  letters,  the  name  of  Marquette ; 
but  if  you  or  any  one  else  are  leaning  more  on  the  side  of 
doubt,  I  shall  not  quarrel  with  you. 

"Some  of  the  remains  were  re-interred  under  the  monu- 
ment together  with  specimens  of  the  debris.  Other  pieces 
are  in  the  possession  of  a  number  of  the  admirers  of  Father 
Marquette,  all  over  the  country.  The  greatest  and  most  in- 
teresting collection  (the  bones  being  arranged  in  a  neat  cas- 
ket, presented  for  that  purpose,  by  Rev.  Father  Faeber  of 
St.  Louis),  will  be  piously  preserved  in  the  Marquette  Col- 
lege of  Milwaukee.  I  thought  it  would  be  safer  there  than 
in  the  hands  of  Your  friend, 

EDWARD  JACKER." 

I  have  given  this  quotation  from  Father  Jacker's  letter 
only  because  historic  doubts  have  been  cast  on  the  assump- 
tion that  Marquette's  relics  were  found  at  St.  Ignace,  by 
members  of  this  Society  of  undoubted  sagacity  and  acumen, 
notably,  Mr.  H.  H.  Hurlbut  in  a  paper  read  before  it  on 
October  15,  1878,  and  by  Robert  Fergus  later. 

I  must  think,  however,  that  these  gentlemen  (and  I  have 
read  their  papers  carefully),  were  the  ones  who  jumped  at 
conclusions  rather  than  Father  Jacker,  whose  reasons  for 
believing  that  he  had  actually  discovered  the  remains  of 
Marquette,  they  had  evidently  never  seen. 

But  it  is  really  of  small  importance  whether  Father 
Jacker  or  the  sceptics  are  right.  All  agree  that  no  more  fit- 
ting place  than  the  Island  of  Mackinac — at  the  entrance  of 
this  great  Mississippi  Valley  which  he  first  explored — can 
be  found  for  a  national  monument  to  this  intrepid  soldier 
of  the  Cross. 


271 

It  was  the  supposed  discovery  of  his  relics  which  first 
gave  form  to  this  idea.  On  August  8th  and  Qth,  in  1878,  an 
association  was  formed  at  Mackinac  Island  for  the  purpose 
of  securing  this  monument.  Senators  Stockbridge  and  Ferry, 
of  Michigan,  were  prime  movers  in  the  enterprise,  which 
they  believed  would  reflect  honor  on  their  state,  and  the  lat- 
ter was  the  first  President  of  the  Association.  Invitations 
to  attend  the  meeting  at  Mackinac  Island  in  1878  had  been 
given  to  members  of  the  various  Historical  Societies  of  the 
West,  and  if  I  am  not  much  mistaken  this  Society  was  rep- 
resented, I  think  by  the  late  Hon.  Thomas  Hoyne  and 
others. 

For  various  reasons,  the  movement — although  com- 
menced and  fairly  under  way — soon  became  quiescent  and 
remained  so  until  the  last  summer,  when  a  determined  effort 
to  revive  it,  this  time  with  undoubted  prospects  of  success, 
was  made.  A  new  organization,  to  be  incorporated  under 
the  laws  of  Michigan,  was  formed  and  called  The  Mar- 
quette  Monument  Association.  Mr.  MacVeagh  has  con- 
sented to  act  as  its  President,  and  I  have  the  honor  to  be  its 
Secretary.  Mr.  Peter  White,  of  Marquette,  an  ardent  ad- 
mirer of  Marquette  whose  memory  in  the  prosperous  city  on 
Lake  Superior  which  is  named  for  him  he  has  done  much  to 
honor,  is  its  Treasurer.  Its  Trustees  are  Archbishop  Ire- 
land and  the  Anglican  and  Roman  Catholic  Bishops  of 
Michigan,  Davies  and  Foley,  Gov.  Peck,  of  Wisconsin,  who 
had  much  to  do  with  the  erection  in  the  National  Hall  of 
Statuary  at  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  of  Marquette's 
statue  as  one  of  Wisconsin's  contributions  to  that  Valhalla, 
Mayor  Maybury,  of  Detroit,  James  F.  Blair,  of  St.  Louis, 
Mr.  Onahan,  of  Chicago,  Mr.  Dormer,  of  Buffalo,  and 
Messrs.  Fenton  and  Bailey,  of  Mackinac  Island. 

The  somewhat  rigid  laws  of  Michigan  concerning  the 
details  of  incorporation  have  caused  some  delay,  but  the  dif-. 
faculties  have  been  surmounted  and  within  a  few  days  now 
the  incorporation  will  have  been  definitely  consummated  and 
the  Association  ready  for  work. 

The  Park  Commissioners  of  Michigan,  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Mr.  White,  have  generously  donated  a  magnifi- 
cent site  for  a  heroic  statue  of  Marquette  and  a  surrounding 


272 

park,  just  below  the  fort  at  Mackinac  and  in  full  view  of 
the  pathway  of  all  vessels  entering  Lake  Michigan.  The 
statue,  when  erected,  will  be  a  worthy  national  monument 
to  the  noblest  of  our  early  pioneers  of  the  West — and  very 
fitly  will  be  the  first  object  that  must  attract  the  attention 
and  command  the  respect  of  the  countless  thousands  of 
Americans  who  are  destined  in  future  years  to  visit  the  fairy 
isle  of  Mackinac. 

Adjourned-  CHARLES  EVANS, 

Secretary. 


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